After Benghazi hearings, lawmakers want more ‘whistle-blowers’ to step forward

Alex Pappas

Alex Pappas is a Washington D.C.-based political reporter for The Daily Caller. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and the Mobile Press-Register. Pappas is a graduate of The University of the South in Sewanee, Tenn., where he was editor-in-chief of The Sewanee Purple. While in college, he did internships at NBC's Meet the Press and the White House. He grew up in Mobile, Ala., where he graduated from St. Paul's Episcopal School. He and his wife live on Capitol Hill.

WASHINGTON — After hours of testimony Wednesday from witnesses to last year’s lethal terrorist attacks in Benghazi, lawmakers on Capitol Hill called on more “whistle-blowers” to come forward, saying there is much more to learn.

“This hearing is now over, but this investigation is not,” Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, told reporters in the hallway after the hearing.

Issa, a Republican from California, said his message to potential “whistle-blowers” who “have been afraid to come forward” is that “today should demonstrate that in fact it is the right time to come forward.”

“Tell us your story, and we’ll make sure it gets told,” he said in the Rayburn House Office Building.

The Benghazi attacks of Sept. 11, 2012 left Chris Stevens, the U.S. Ambassador to Libya, among its dead. On Wednesday, three witnesses — including the country’s top diplomat in Libya after Stevens’ death — appeared before the Oversight Committee’s “Benghazi: Exposing Failure and Recognizing Courage” hearing.

The most damning revelations for the Obama administration came from Gregory Hicks, a foreign service officer and former Deputy Chief of Mission/Chargé d’Affairs in Libya.

Hicks testified that State Department lawyers pressured him not to cooperate with congressional investigators and that Cheryl
Mills, a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, became upset with him over his cooperation.